Author: Hank Nuwer

This Univ of Miss. editorial is now three years old: Our View – Someone needs to tell the truth about what happened to Reid Waldrip.As you flip through today’s paper, take notice of an advertisement located at the bottom of page 11.

Reid Waldrip was an ordinary Ole Miss student enjoying his freshman year of school. He was meeting new folks, surviving his classes and excited by his recent bid to Sigma Chi fraternity.

All of this changed, however, in the early morning of Oct. 7, when Waldrip, after attending a Bid Day party for his fraternity, suffered multiple, unexplained skull fractures and considerable brain damage. In the time since the incident, Reid has undergone physical, speech and occupational therapy, regaining some ability, but still having considerable trouble with his speech and the use of his right hand, his father said.

Perhaps the most disturbing part about this whole ordeal is how little has been publically disclosed about what happened that night. A large and critical information gap exists in the timeline of events.

Virtually no one knows how Reid Waldrip was hurt. His injuries were consistent with a two-story fall, though no such opportunity for one is known.

No one knows how Reid Waldrip got home. It is highly unlikely that he walked to the dorm from a party in the Shiloh subdivision having just sustained a massive head injury. If he didn’t walk, then, someone must have driven him, but not a single person has come forward to say that they saw a wounded Waldrip.

That police, university and Sigma Chi investigations and interrogations have turned up nothing is both frustrating and infuriating. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt and say that Reid’s injury was the result of a pure and unavoidable accident.

It was at a party attended by more than 50 people, and no one knows anything. It’s impossible.

Reid Waldrip will never be quite the same again, and no one even has the nerve to step forward — even anonymously — to aid this investigation? No, someone knows something. Somebody out there has information that will bring the truth about Oct. 7 into the open.

Your silence is inhumane.

If you know anything about what happened to Reid Waldrip in the Shiloh neighborhood on Oct. 7, please contact UPD, OPD, the Waldrip family, or any of the lawyers listed on page 11.

The DM Editorial Board is composed of Editor Laura Houston, Opinion Editor Marquita Brown, English major Joel Moore and biochemistry major Lara Oyetunji.

Prosecutor says he’s sorry Rider administrators were indictedBy CHRIS NEWMARKER | Associated Press Writer
8:34 AM EDT, September 15, 2007

TRENTON, N.J. – As a college student drank himself to death, two Rider University administrators had already gone home for the day, unaware of the fraternity party raging on the campus.

Yet four months later, the officials found themselves facing criminal hazing charges connected to the student’s death. The prosecutor defended the charges. A message, he said, was being sent to college administrators nationwide.

But in the end, chances are no one will go to jail for the 18-year-old’s drinking death in March. The indictments against the administrators were dropped, and most of the students indicted will avoid jail time and criminal records.

Now the prosecutor who once said the administrator indictments sent a message about the “standards of college life” says he was unsure from the beginning whether the charges would stick.

“I was grappling with it in my own mind. We were trying to figure out what to do with it,” said Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini Jr.

In fact, Bocchini says he feels sorry that Anthony Campbell, 52, Rider’s dean of students, and Ada Badgley, 31, the university’s director of Greek life, had to face indictments. But he says the system left him no choice.

“I said, ‘Look, I have a grand jury, a legally constituted body, recognized by the courts, that comes back with this indictment. We have to look at this thoroughly. This is a highly sensitive case,”‘ Bocchini said.

But critics point out that prosecutors instructed the grand jury _ made up of 23 laypeople _ and provided the evidence it saw. And if Bocchini really thought the resulting charges were questionable, critics say he held off too long to drop them.

“He took up the court’s time. He does not get an A plus for the way he handled this,” said Hank Nuwer, an expert on hazing cases who teaches journalism at Franklin College in Franklin, Ind.

Nuwer said Bocchini’s handling of the case may actually make other prosecutors leery about indicting university officials involved with campus crimes.

The outcome has caused further grief for the family of Gary DeVercelly Jr., the 18-year-old fraternity pledge from Long Beach, Calif., who died of alcohol poisoning.

“The family’s upset that it now appears none of the wrongdoers will face any serious criminal consequences for their role in the death of their son,” said Doug Fierberg, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who’s been retained by DeVercelly’s family.

DeVercelly had a blood-alcohol level of 0.426 percent, or more than five times the Garden State’s legal limit for driving, when he was pronounced dead March 30, authorities have said.

DeVercelly died after a Phi Kappa Tau house party that prosecutors have described as a special event, in which pledges would drink large quantities of hard liquor with fraternity brothers.

The student’s death, and the evidence provided by prosecutors, ended up drawing a strong response from the grand jury.

“They were upset with the university. This was an emotional case,” Bocchini now says.

Three weeks after he announced the indictments, Bocchini asked a judge to dismiss the counts against the Campbell and Badgley.

Former state attorney general John Farmer Jr. thinks three weeks may have been a long time to wait before trying to get the counts dismissed.

“Being accused is irreparable damage to someone’ life and you need to resolve this as quickly as possible,” Farmer said.

Campbell’s lawyer, Rocco Cipparone Jr., wishes Bocchini had publicized the case in a different way.

“The result was the right result. But the process was something no one wants to go through, especially in a high profile way,” Cipparone said.

But Badgley’s lawyer, David Laigaie, thought Bocchini’s office handled the case appropriately overall.

“It was an investigative grand jury. There’s a limit to a prosecutor’s ability to instruct a grand jury to charge or not to charge,” Laigaie said.

Mitch Crane, a former municipal judge in Pennsylvania and expert on college hazing cases, also didn’t see any obvious problems with the way the Rider case was handled. Even though the charges against the administrators were dropped, he still thought the case sent a message that administrators might be criminally responsible for the actions of their students.

“In student affairs, there’s a great deal of fear throughout the country that, ‘Gee, I could be arrested and charged for something I wasn’t directly involved with,”‘ Crane said. “I don’t think the fact these charges were dropped against the dean and the Greek adviser will change that.”

Maneater student newspaper excerpt: Greek panel addresses hazing
By Samantha Balaski, Reporter.   Posted September 14, 2007.
Katie Woods/Staff Photographer
Master of ceremonies Jerico Riley adds to a point made by a board member during an anti-hazing forum in the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center on Thursday. The meeting, sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, included discussions about the importance of appropriate behavior on campus, both inside and outside Greek houses.

Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity played host to an anti-hazing forum Thursday in the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture center to raise awareness in the traditionally black Greek community and throughout campus, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity member Gerald McLemore said.

The event began with an address by Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity President Branden Gregory, who then introduced the master of ceremonies, senior Jerico Riley. The theme of the event was the prevalence of hazing in sororities and fraternities, particularly in the traditionally black chapters.

A panel of experts answered questions and addressed hazing issues to all Greek members to National Pan-Hellenic Council. The panel included long-term members of several traditionally black fraternities and sororities, many of whom went to MU.

The first topic of the forum was the history of hazing…
This ritual has continued in underground pledge rituals at campuses across the country. ..the floor was opened to questions and statements from the panel.

“When I pledged, everything was a process of development,” panelist Arnell Monroe said. “The older brothers used pledging as a time to expose a weakness in you and to help you overcome it. It was all a process of developing and growing into your full potential as a brother, as a student and as a person.”

Monroe said pledging today has turned to a “demented sense” of what he went through.

“There used to be pride on both sides,” Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority spokeswoman Linda Garth said. “When I pledged, the older sisters were proud to walk around campus with us wearing our pledge shirts. They were just as proud of us as we were to wear them.”

All of these statements ultimately brought attention to what some Greek groups are doing with their young pledges. University-approved activities such as pomping for Homecoming and other expected chores around Greek houses, such as bathroom cleaning, are exploited in many chapters.

“A Greek family will not make you anything you’re not,” Monroe said. “It will merely accentuate who you already are. You should join to accentuate the talents you already have, not to be subjected to abuse.”